Toyota NXS Texas Daniel Suarez Notes & Quotes – 11.4.16

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Daniel Suarez was made available to the media at Texas Motor Speedway:

DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing

What are your thoughts heading into this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway?

“For now, we are thinking about tonight’s race in the Trucks. We have some work to do there. Hopefully, we can learn something that we can apply for tomorrow’s race in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and put a good race together. This is a good place for me. Obviously, we don’t get to race in Mexico and this is the closest that we get to Mexico, so a lot of family and a lot of friends are coming to the race, so looking forward to having a good run and to have some fun.”

Does it feel like there’s no clear favorite in the NXS Chase?

“I agree with what Brendan (Gaughan) said. I think it’s – you know, it just adds a lot of pressure to everyone and that’s normal. When you add pressure to somebody, sometimes you make mistakes and I’m not talking just about drivers – teams as well, pit crews, everyone – so I think it’s something very cool to see. I mean, I think I work well under pressure, but we’ll see in the next few weeks.”

Is your championship run a big news story in Mexico?

“Well, I try to not look at that because for me – for me, this is just my second year in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. I feel like I’m just starting in this sport and I feel like I’m still learning a lot every single weekend. I feel like Brendan (Gaughan) said, I really feel like we are one of the best teams right now – maybe the hottest team right now – and that obviously helps a lot, but, you know, I’m one of those guys that I just try to do my work and everything else is going to take care of itself if you do it right, so, you know, a lot of people in Mexico is very excited. I had the opportunity to go back to Mexico in our first week off for the announcement of the sponsor for the NASCAR Mexico Series for next year and it was just unbelievable surprise for the welcome that I had from the media. It was just unbelievably crazy and I was just super excited. They are very excited to see what’s going on with us here in the United States in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and for me that is just even more exciting to see a lot of support from – really from here in the U.S. and from a lot of people in Mexico as well.”

What do you think of the new rules limiting NSCS driver participation in the NXS?

“For me, you know, I’m just trying to learn as much as possible in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and I’m one of those guys that I think that with the Cup guys, yeah, it’s more difficult to win races and it’s more difficult to run in the top-five, but when you are able to do it and when you are able to beat those guys, you feel even better and you learn more as well, so, you know, I really think that there’s going to be – it’s going to change, because we’re going to have more opportunities to race in the top-five and more opportunities to win races. But at the same time, I feel like all that experience from the Cup guys – everyone, Kyle (Busch), Matt (Kenseth), Brad (Keselowski), Joey (Logano), all these guys – I feel like it’s going to be something there maybe some races missing, you know, because for a young driver, it’s just very important to try to observe as much as you can from the big guys and then those guys they have a lot of years racing and a lot of experience in every single race track that we are able to get that from them and next year is going to be different, but I don’t think it’s going to be a bad thing for so many drivers.”